Editorial: Adoption records are loosening but more is needed to help orphans, adoptees find out who they are

Published
5:54 pm EST, Thursday, December 8, 2016

Who am I?

That is the question that more than 400,000 orphans in the United States and 140 million orphans worldwide probably ask themselves every day.

Some of them spend their entire lives lost in an emotionally opaque area of not knowing anything about their true identity. The foundation that provides most of us with solid footing to build a life is something many adoptees have to create on their own to find their way in the world.

Jimmy Miller is one of them.

Orphaned at 7 months of age, he has spent his life raising millions for orphanages and helping other orphans. But despite his decades-long efforts, he has never been able to find the mother and father who abandoned him and he has never been able to find out why. He admits to being angry and bitter about the unanswered questions. He has no idea who his grandparents are, or whether he has sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles or nieces and nephews.

At age 90, as he reflected on his life during an interview with the Register, he made a very profound statement about who he is and where he comes from: “I would like to know,” he said. That must be an awful void for abandoned children to try to fill; never to know who they are, where they come from or which parent they look like. But that hole is something Miller says he has had to live with.

He is not alone.

On any given day, there are approximately 100,000 children waiting to be adopted in the United States and the average child waiting for a family is 7 years old. Roughly 30,000 of them will age out without ever knowing the comfort having a family brings. Here in Connecticut, more than 1,200 kids need homes.

It has taken decades but, across the United States, legislators are recognizing the need to open adoption records, not only so adoptees will know their birth parents but also so they have crucial information such as medical records.

Connecticut passed its law last year, granting unrestricted access to adult adoptees whose adoption was finalized on or after Oct. 1, 1983. New Jersey is the latest to revamp its policies and it comes after 34 years of relentless lobbying. The new law that goes into effect in January 2017 allows people who were adopted to get their original birth certificates containing information about their parents, medical history and identity. However, birth parents can still block access.

There currently are 18 other states that have unsealed adoption records in some form — whether it is full, limited or restricted access. The other states are Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington state.

Not everyone thinks adoption records should be unsealed.

During a 2014 debate in the Connecticut General Assembly, some lawmakers questioned the fairness of changing the rules after many older birth mothers were led to believe their identities would always be unknown. State Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, called it “morally wrong” to put birth parents in the position of potentially being contacted by a child given up for adoption.

Maybe so. But it leaves millions of adoptees worldwide and hundreds of thousands nationwide empty as they search for an identity.

Connecticut has made tremendous strides in helping adoptees learn about their roots. Still, more needs to be done to ensure that people like Miller don’t get to the end of their lives still searching for answers to their heritage.